Stuart Dybek - I Sailed with Magellan

For a moment, the foam of my dive felt like crushed ice. When I shot up, a wave broke over my head and I snorted some water, but I was swimming. Sir’s head splashed up from underwater right beside me.

“Want the soap?”

I shook my head no. “It’s great! Terrific!”

“Sure, just takes making the plunge and a little getting used to.”

I felt used to it already, clean and hard, letting the cold wash away a week of sweat. The water seemed more and more comfortable so that, when a breeze skimmed over, I sank deeper, breaststroking, riding the waves. Like Sir had told me, it was easier to swim in deep water. I could feel it buoying me and practiced the crawl, lifting my arms high and rolling my face in the water, hoping Mick was watching. Sir streaked under me, the white soles of his feet gleaming like fish scales.

“How do you swim underwater so long?”

“Easy — the secret in water is to relax, don’t listen to little nervous voices. Never fight it and you’ll be all right. Take three deep breaths.” He demonstrated, huffing in and out slowly three times. “And when you dive if your ears start to hurt, swallow like on an elevator. Keep your eyes open.”

He flipped and speared down.

I inhaled three times quick and ducked under, trying to follow him. When I surfaced, he was still under. I knew I’d wimped out, and could have stayed down longer if I hadn’t listened to the frightened voice urging me to come up for air.

“Hey, Mick!” I hollered.

I slowly inhaled six breaths and dove. The water was silvery green, and my hands finned before me like two perch. I was drawing my body through layers, each colder than the last, my eyes blurrily peering through increasing dimness, and my ears starting to ache with pressure. I swallowed, which helped some, kicked deeper, and as I heard the inner voice begin prompting me to shoot back up, I saw bottom, the same bottom Sir had seen when he swam with Johnny Weissmuller. There were no Mastodon tusks. It was gray, littered with mossy rocks, rolling beer cans, swaying silty seaweed.

I kicked hard and wrenched a slimy rock out of the mud, and the bottom clouded up so that I couldn’t see. My ears were roaring, and instead of ascending, I was being carried along the bottom, my head near to exploding from holding my breath, and even though I couldn’t see I was suddenly sure that the ocean liner on the horizon was passing overhead, its enormous hull turning the water dark, diesel churning the shaft of the great propeller that swept me along the bottom until I dropped the rock. Within the dreamlike moment that breath-holding expands, I could feel the current along the bottom rushing into the cavern under the walkway and realized the undertow didn’t pull you out, it sucked you in, under the city, into the pipes, that was why they couldn’t find the bodies. I knew the boy who’d drowned was curled in a fetal position, ghastly white, hair swaying as he pitched under the Rocks. It was me. I was going to die choosing numbness rather than panic. My Adam’s apple swelled in my throat, forcing my mouth open. A hand was pushing on the seat of my suit, I opened my eyes, my father stared at me underwater, bubbles came from his mouth as he moved his lips like he was trying to tell me something important.

Stars were out over the lake. The bronzed dome of the Planetarium glowed otherworldly over the ridges of limestone. Mick stood at the edge of the Rocks waving and yelling, “Come on in … I wanna go home … mosquitoes!”

Behind him floodlights were enveloped in bugs. They landed drowning in kicking circles on the oily troughs of swells. The surface glistened, rocking with moonlit suds. Sir was surrounded by Mexican kids, all shampooing with the laundry soap, laughing, dunking, flinging handfuls of lather.

“Me Tarzan!” they shouted, howling ape calls across the water.

I was still coughing and spitting up, ears plugged and ringing.

“Don’t swallow too much water,” Sir said, looking at me. “People do their business in it.”

“I’m going in for a while.” I dog-paddled away, then hung in the water, letting a warm jet of pee run through my suit. Then I timed a wave and let it boost me up the rusty metal rungs sticking from the concrete. The sides went straight down, scarred with watermarks. It wasn’t hollow under the walkway after all.

I sat on the edge of the Rocks watching the beacons from Meigs field crisscross as winking planes cranked in for the night.

“How’s it goin?” The same young Mexican kid squatted down beside me. His lips were still chattering. He was dragging at a wet cigarette.

“I thought that big ship out there came in.”

“Those red lights way out there, man?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the pumping station,” he said, and before I could say I know he whirled and called something in rapid Spanish to his brother.

His brother came over, grinning.

“See that guy in the water?” I said quickly. “He swam all the way out there once.”

The kid passed me the cigarette, wet paper sticking to his fingertips. I glanced over at Sir. He was propelling on his back, holding the soap over his head while the others thrashed after him trying to catch it.

“Tarzan! Me Tarzan!” they were yelling.

I took a drag and passed it to the older brother.

“Man,” he said, “even the real Tarzan ain’t gonna swim out there.” He inhaled deeply, squinting out past the glowing ash.

The red lights blinked on and off in the descending darkness. They seemed to be slowly moving.

Sundays have always been depressing enough without having to do a job. Besides, he’s hungover, so fuck Sunday. Taking somebody out on Sunday is probably bad luck.

And Monday: no wheels. He’s got an appointment with the Indian at the Marvel station on Western. That man’s a pro — can listen to an engine idle and tell you the wear on the belts, can hear stuff already going bad that won’t break for months. The Indian is the only one he lets touch the Bluebird, his powder blue, 312 Y-block, Twin Holley, four-barrel T-bird.

Tuesday, it’s between Sovereign and hauling more than a month’s laundry to the Chink’s. Not to mention another hangover. He strips the sheets, balls them into the pillowcases, stuffs in the towels. He’s tired of their stink, his stink, of dirty clothes all over the floor, all over the apartment. He’s been wearing the same underwear how long? He strips naked and stares at himself in the bedroom mirror. His reflection looks smudged, and he wipes the mirror with a sock, then drops to the carpet to do a hundred push-ups — that always sharpens the focus.

He manages only seventy, and then, chest pounding hard enough to remind him that his father’s heart gave out at age forty-five, lights a cigarette. He slaps on some Old Spice, slips back into his trousers and shirt without bothering to check the mirror, stuffs another pillowcase with dirty clothes, and since he’s cleaning, starts on the heaps of dishes unwashed for weeks. Then, wham, it hits him like a revelation: who needs all this shit? Into trash bags go not only pizza cardboards and Chinese food cartons but bottles, cans, cereal boxes, plates, bowls, glasses, dirty pots. The silverware can stay. Next, it’s the refrigerator’s turn: sour milk, moldy cheese, rancid butter, all the scummy, half-empty bottles of mustard, mayo, pickles, jam, until the fridge is completely empty except for its cruddy shelves.

He removes the shelves.

Now he’s got room for the giant mortadella that Sal brought from Italy. Sal came back from his trip bearing gifts and saying, “Allora!” whatever that means. The mortadella is scarred with wounds from another souvenir Sallie brought him, a stiletto. He’s wanted an authentic stiletto for his knife collection, and this one is a piece of work, a slender pearl handle contoured to slide the thumb directly to the switch, and the most powerful spring he’s ever seen on a knife. When the six-inch blade darted out, the knife actually recoiled in his hand. It felt as if the blade could shoot through Sheetrock, let alone flesh. He tested it on the mortadella, a thick sausage more muscular than Charles F-ing Atlas. He wondered if the knife could penetrate the rind, and was amazed when the thrust of the spring buried the blade to the hilt. It was a test he found himself repeating, and the mortadella, now propped in the empty refrigerator, looks as if it’s seen gladiatorial combat, like Julius F-ing Caesar after Brutus got done with him.